Not only is Max Stossel an award-winning poet and filmmaker, he is one of the biggest forces behind digital activism. In today’s episode, we take on the role digital infrastructure plays in our daily routines and address the biggest social experiment of our time. During our conversation, we explore everything from social media and conflict resolution to the effect of runaway algorithms to brain hacking and the goals of technology companies.

Topics include:

Is what we click and what we want the same thing?

Feeding confirmation biases in modern content

Cultivating brand authenticity in today’s society

Social media and its role in conflict resolution

The role of the Time Well Spent movement in the human crisis

How to embrace technology in a responsible way

Why we need to stop tying our time to profits

The effect of Facebook emojis on our psychology

Runaway algorithms and their effects on information

The nature of truth and fact as popular opinion

Are the goals of technology companies the same as our goals?

Why notifications are designed like slot machines

How to build a more responsible relationship with technology

Max Stossel is an award-winning poet and filmmaker, and one of the leaders of Time Well Spent, a movement to align technology with our humanity. His work has spanned across 14 languages, has won two Webby Awards, shown at multiple film festivals, consistently gone viral, and influenced the way digital media organizations tell the stories of mass murder in the news. Before entering the worlds of poetry, film, and digital activism, Max was a media strategist with an extensive background in social.

Max ran social campaigns for Budweiser to increase average engagement, and was trained by Gary Vaynerchuk. Max went on to create social strategies for Dove and several other Fortune 100 brands. He has written on the subject for Quartz and The Huffington Post. The merging of these fields gave Max the unique ability to provide a fascinating perspective on modern content and culture. He is currently helping select brands tell their stories in his style via video, speaking at schools, corporations and events, and helping content-focused brands stop wasting their money and start focusing their content resources effectively.